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aliatori · 7 months

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Trust and Defying

Lavender washes over the contours of the mortal world, a dull haze muting its vibrant colours. They’ve docked in one port or another—the Enclave, if the echoing sensation of Vidakai’s dedicants and their memories through their consciousness is to be believed—but they couldn’t care less about which territorial waters the physical ship rests on. Form over function, forever their favourite.

Vidakai’s focus, their entire reason for manifesting here in the still-dreary permutations of this coil, belongs to the captain of said vessel and the ongoing game of wits and wills between them.

BORING. HAVE I GIVEN YOU THE IMPRESSION I CARE FOR SUCH THINGS, WHEN EVERY PLACE MY BONDBREAKERS AND SECRET EATERS CALL HOME BELONGS TO ME AS WELL? IF YOU’RE TRULY TRYING TO INTOXICATE YOURSELF WITH AN EXCESS OF MAGIC, YOU’LL HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN LIES ABOUT MERE GEOGRAPHY.

(.are they who are They .sake s'amusement for ,own their of lie little A)

The lack of a First blunts Vidakai’s sensation in this realm. But they do so adore piecing together a puzzle, and the clues draw an inevitable conclusion of torrid summer heat: Hugo reclines on his bed at the stern of the Tide, stripped down to only his breeches and little else, sweat-drenched tendrils of greying hair clinging to his neck. Vidakai’s taunt draws his gaze from the windows to their form, a rearing serpent from a half millennia ago.

“If land won’t suffice, what about the heavens?” Vidakai’s irritation ripples their form, an invisible hand waved through a cloud of amethystine smoke. If it weren’t so charming, they’d unravel Hugo’s smirk with the point of a claw. “Xeheia’s constellation Rises in the winter season. The Enclave bases their calendar on the twin stars they’ve named for Rhohnas. If you measure the distance between the sun and the horizon while in the Unchartables back-to-back, you get the same figure each time.”

They’re lies by the most pedantic definition, petty falsehoods in spite of truth. Each one plunks pathetically into the bond like a pebble into a rushing river. Agitation curls Vidakai in on themself, their serpentine curves coiling in a prelude to danger… that is, until a stronger ripple draws their attention.

A single stone dropped into an ewer can still make it overflow.

Their flirtations with falsehoods have succeeded. Somewhat. Hugo’s bare chest rises and falls as he scrutinizes Vidakai’s form, and Vidakai recalls enough of mortality to know it for the clue it is. More relevantly, the reserves of his magic—magic Vidakai continues to feed him with glee each time he lies—competes with the oscillating, shadow-pulse aura of the ring around his middle finger, an obsidian circle of carved teeth and the most subtle facet of the puzzle box in his possession. Vidakai senses it less in ‘sight’ and more as a resplendent beacon of whispers, a recursive waterfall of their own essence pouring back into them. A gift from a gift. The tether of the secret they share, of their deepened bond, tugs at Vidakai wherever they are, in this realm or their own, reeling them toward a fixed end.

It breathes a life Vidakai only half remembers but craves intensely into Hugo, painting him in a vivacious palette, his edges sharp as his tongue.

IF YOU INSIST ON WASTING MY TIME WITH SUCH PUNCTILIOUSNESS, I CAN SIMPLY LEAVE AND FIND A BETTER BOUNTY ELSEWHERE. YOUR IMPUDENCE AND IRREVERENCE AMUSE ONLY TO A POINT.

Speaking of things they adore. Their favourite, their would-be First of the Forsworn stares at them, direct and hungry, a feast of emotions writing themselves on his unguarded features. They are all too aware their divine fluidity is magnificent complicated spLENDID TERRIBLE MARVELOUS—hard. Hard to behold in this realm.

Hugo’s eyes (twins of different eyes, in a different time, sea green and spilling salt as Vidakai sinks their teeth into their sun-drenched bond, tongue coated with bright betrayal) narrow. A fond affection surges like storm-tossed waves through Vidakai at his constant suspicion. “And here I thought you couldn’t afford to be so particular about your vintages. Not yet, at least. Never mind the quality of your company.”

Oh. A mortal exclamation for a distinctly immortal phenomenon. Clever, clever, clever Forsworn. The subtle sweetness of the lies rustle through Vidakai, all the better to be savoured. They want to be across from-near-INSIDE-next to Hugo, and so they are, a stolen shape of a dedicant long deceased their form as they mimic a human’s cross-legged pose.

BETTER. MUCH BETTER. BUT IT TAKES MORE THAN A SIP OF EVEN THE FINEST VINTAGE TO ACHIEVE OBLIVION.

“Best to approach the challenge on two fronts, then.” Hugo waves what remains of his right arm to an adjacent shelf carved into the Tide’s timbers.

Vidakai intends to follow with only their sense of sight but ends up beside the shelf in the form of a sleek ermine, claws braced on the wood. This close, they can read the script, their newfound multitude of bonds supplying the meaning of the label: Luminous Age. Vidakai deems the smaller subtext cramped beneath it irrelevant.

I RECOGNIZE THIS FROM YOUR SPECIAL CABINET, THE ONE YOU ONLY OPEN IN TIMES OF GREAT SUCCESS OR CELEBRATION. WHAT CAUSE DO WE HAVE TO CELEBRATE? Vidakai says, borrowing the aromatic whistle of wind through wildflowers to make their point. Hugo gives them a look of such affront that Vidakai dissolves—literally—into their mirth, reappearing across from Hugo in their sailor’s form. WHAT? YOU DIDN’T TRULY THINK YOU COULD KEEP A SECRET COMPARTMENT HIDDEN FROM THE DEITY OF SECRETS? PLEASE. YOU MAY MANAGE TO OFFEND ME IN EARNEST.

The affronted expression melts into a warm amusement, underlined by an easy laugh, Hugo’s baritone a rich music in Vidakai’s perception, all the more beautiful in its rarity. He takes up the bottle, tips the elongated neck to his mouth, and takes several swallows of clear liquor before returning it to the would-be nightstand.

“Nothing,” he says, his smirk gone lopsided. “I’m celebrating nothing.”

Another lie, and an enticing one at that, a lie that promises delectable truth. Vidakai rewards him accordingly. They pour magic into the overflowing vessel Hugo has made of himself, the seed from which Vidakai themself grew back into the world, the flesh-and-blood dendritic heart of their divinity.

Mortals have differing reactions to an excess of Vidakai’s power, most of them pleasant. Honey instead of vinegar, like the human expression. After all, Vidakai was once the shepherd, the guardian of those who found their oaths to the other Exiled or Exalted too much to bear. Why make serving them another torture?

Judging by the flush in Hugo’s cheeks and chest, pale skin shot through with pink, and by the groan that blossoms low in the column of his throat, his reaction to a superfluidity of Vidakai’s gifts certainly proves pleasurable.

It awakens a divine hunger in Vidakai. They want, as they did in Xeheia’s collapsing Heart, to crawl into his skin, to make his breath their breath, their power his power. They want to rip out the broken shreds of Xeheia’s touch from his butchered soul and make him truly theirs and theirs alone.

They want (time, always more time, the lives of their devotees spending drop by inevitable drop like sand through the turnglass yet faster than they can count, their spirits snatched to realms they cannot follow to, hollow ruins like empty graves left behind in their lavender-drenched world) Hugo. They want (seimene sih fo staorht eht dner retteb yam eh os wodahs dna terces ni hteet sih nroda ot ,raw ot gniydaer dna srebmuls rieht morf gnikaw sdog eht morf mih dleihs ot ,mih retlehs ot sterces fo sisoehtopa eht eb ot) to feast on the magic emanating from him in lush waves, like a stonefruit juices dripping down a jutted chin.

Waves crashing against the cliffside, the cracking of the earth beneath the seafloor, the heady desire of a courtesan in the Imperial shadow-harem: LIE TO ME AGAIN, FORSWORN. GO ON. YOU KNOW I DON’T MIND. I’M CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Delirium outlines the edges of Hugo’s laughter, and were it any of their other devotees, Vidakai would deem it a giggle. “Assume your true form and I might consider something better.” Hugo leans back against the Tide’s skeleton, eyes half-lidded, knees falling open like the gentle fan of butterfly wings as he stares at Vidakai. “A secret for a truth.”

ALL FORMS ARE MY TRUE FORM. Vidakai assumes the manifestation of a shadowkraken and circles in the air above the bed, waiting, Hugo’s too-vivid colours blurring as distraction fragments their concentration. ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT DIRECTLY, OR DO NOT BOTHER TO ASK AT ALL.

And here, the iron spine of him, resilient even through an overabundance of power so intense Vidakai finds him difficult to focus on directly. “You know exactly the form I mean.” That the words are softly slurred with desire-liquor-longing-lust only makes them all the more appealing.

Vidakai is here, everywhere, nowhere, and now they find themselves in their favourite deific form, floating horizontally above Hugo, all four arms reaching for him, claws extended. They match claws to scars—the two crescents beneath his chest, the pulsing lavender beacon where Vidakai plucked a secret from his soul to swallow, the knot of jagged white flesh where Xeheia’s chosen son electrified him back to breathing life.

HERE’S MY TRUTH. NOW, MY SECRET. I’M WAITING.

Hugo’s chest rises and falls beneath the four pinpricks of Vidakai’s touch. To be able to touch him at all, to not be driven away—were the intention different, it could almost count as a secret. He beholds Vidakai with a complex awe, pupils blown wide, grappling with whatever hidden truth he’s about to sacrifice on their altar.

“I’m not a fool. The bond, the outings, the games, the gifts. I can recognize flirtation, such as it is coming from a once-mortal deity. You’ve been courting me.”

A delicate, precarious position. Not quite a secret. Not yet, not yet, not YET. Push too hard and Hugo will retreat—they learned this lesson after the Heart, when they took their transgressions too far, got too greedy in their eagerness to have him as their First.

FINALLY. I WAS BEGINNING TO WONDER IF YOU WERE LESS INTELLIGENT THAN YOU SEEMED. OR RATHER, LESS INCLINED TO MY SERVICE. I DON’T TEND TO ATTRACT FORSWORN WHO REQUIRE MY INTENTIONS SPELLED OUT IN BLACK AND WHITE FOR THEM.

“Then allow me to spell it out for you,” Hugo says. A tension gathers in the air, a prelude to magic. “I’m too old and have lived through too much to waste more time. I want you, everything you have to offer save being First, and I’ve never been afraid of gods, and I’m celebrating because I already know you’ll give it to me.”

The magnitude of the truth explodes through Vidakai, tearing through the fabric of their manifestation and dissipating them back to their own realm for an instant, or an eternity, or one in the same. The succulent power of such a tender secret fills them upon their return, rendering the entire mortal plane in perfect clarity for a crystalline moment. It brings them the beautiful recollection of what it was like to walk the world alongside their devotees—and the yearning to do so once more.

Language, humanity, shape abandons them, leaving only an ancient tongue and primal hunger in its wake.

ፕⶴቹክ ረቹፕ ፕⶴጎነ ፪ቹ ፕⶴቹ ቻጎዪነፕ ፏጎቻፕ ፕዐ ጮልዪኡ ፕⶴቹ ዐርርልነነጎዐክ.

Vidakai redoubles the magic through their bond with Hugo, with the Forsworn who heralded their return to power. They turn him into an eternal loop, a fountain designed to overfill and spilling lavender floods over the edges, more than any mortal could reasonably bear.

The ruination it wreaks on their most adored devotee… astounds. Vidakai commits this memory to the few, the precious, the treasured fragments they’ve maintained.

Hugo’s back arches from the sleek embroidered covers of the bed, mouth open in a long, unabashed moan of pleasure, hips questing in miniature arcs towards a physical sensation that doesn’t exist. A dark stain of desire colours the fabric between the open vee of his legs, spreading more and more as he spends and spends and spends. His bare toes mirror his fist, curling in the sheets as he gasps, jerking as helplessly as a marionette.

And Vidakai supposes, in a way, he is that to them. They are that to one another. They cherish the strings tied tight between them.

It takes Vidakai whispering his name, a redolent rustle overlaid in a hundred different voices, for Hugo to open his eyes. They expect to see shame, but full of spiritual fortification and earthly liquor, all Vidakai gleans from his expression is a decadent covetousness. He reaches between his legs and unbuttons his trousers deftly with one hand, peeling the drenched fabric down, and the secret of it—exposure of such sacred skin, a private act performed for their pleasure—scatters Vidakai’s awareness once more. Hugo’s fingers circle against his flesh, his breath quickened, chin proud.

Vidakai moves their hands, making a delicate cradle of their claws for his jaw, their other hands feather-light on his thighs.

TELL ME YOU WANT ME GONE. TELL ME YOU’RE ASHAMED. IF YOU’RE CERTAIN I’LL DELIVER ON MY PROMISES, ANY LIE AT ALL WILL DO.

Hugo laughs, breathless, euphoric. His eyes are faerie fire, ancient fields as he holds Vidakai’s gaze. “You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you? But no. I expect you to watch—to appreciate this for the gift it is.”

An audacious order and a secret. Far better than a lie. Vidakai rewards Hugo with a torrential flood of power, drinking down every drop of magic Hugo pours back into them as it surpasses his reserve. The urge to possess, to rend, to be as one nearly overtakes them. Hugo’s hips roll beneath the bounty, rutting into his own hand as paroxysms of pleasure overtake him again, his throaty moans thick enough to taste.

They grin, exposing all the many teeth of their most well-known visage, then place a clawed finger of a new, fifth hand to their lips in a shushing gesture.

I’LL DO MUCH MORE THAN WATCH, FORSWORN. Then, then—they begin to demonstrate.

#the forsaken and the forsworn #hugo melançon #vidakai #hugo melançon/vidakai #F&F kinktober 2023 #my writing #this is absolutely canon and I am not apologizing #well you know #canon in the context of its in the trans not-AU

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